For Poles, climax of a mudslinging campaign
By Brian Lavery International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005
WARSAW In Poland's first free parliamentary elections 14 years ago, dozens of political parties competed in the country's chaotic introduction to modern democracy. Only one received more than 12 percent of the vote.
This weekend, Poles will choose their legislators for the fifth time since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the number of political factions has dropped to a more manageable number.
But the campaign, notable for personal attacks and accusations of financial improprieties, shows how the transition to democratic politics for Eastern Europe's largest economy has been far from steady.
A steady stream of opinion polls indicates that voters will reject the governing ex-Communist party, the Social Democratic Alliance led by President Alexsander Kwasniewski, in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, in favor of two centrist groups that together may claim as much as 80 percent of the total tally. The trend is expected to continue in a presidential election on Oct. 9.
Historically, that shift to the right should come as no great surprise: voters here have swung from one end of the political spectrum to the other in each legislative election since 1991; no party has ever been re-elected. Those shifts, and the campaign's focus on exposing corruption, are an essential stage in growing into a mature democracy, some political analysts say.
"Every country has its own dirt," said Leszek Jesien, a former government adviser who teaches about international integration at Tischner European University in Krakow. ''This is an emerging learning process."
Poland's dirt can be muckier than most: one presidential candidate dropped out after allegations that he had collaborated with the Soviet-era secret police. But the airing of such issues helps the country clear the skeletons from its collective closet, Jesien said, in a telephone interview.
And the shifts between left and right often are more significant on the surface than in effect, according to Jakub Boratynski, program director of the Batory Foundation, a pro-democracy research group.
"We have a basic tree of continuity in terms of economic policy and foreign policy by successive governments," he said.
Yet the discord between the two leading parties is so intense that it casts doubt on their ability to cooperate in Parliament, or perhaps even to form a government.
The pro-business Civic Platform and the more conservative Law and Justice party are in a dead heat for seats in the Parliament.
In a poll completed last Sunday, Platform's presidential candidate, the trilingual historian Donald Tusk, received 44 percent support, compared to 26 percent for his Law and Justice rival, Lech Kaczynski, the mayor of Warsaw.
Kaczynski has accused Platform of being out of touch with the needs of the poor and said he wants to implement a "moral rebirth" of Poland. Both parties must address unemployment, which is at 18 percent nationally and even higher in rural areas.
Most of both parties' leading candidates were activists with the Solidarity movement 25 years ago, meaning that the race this time is not between former Communists and former Solidarity figures, said Boratynski of the Batory Foundation.
That development is due in large part to the implosion of Kwasniewski's leftist party, which is expect to receive less than 10 percent of the vote on Sunday. The ex-Communists led Poland into the European Union last year but have been prone to scandals tied to issues like the privatization of the national oil company and television station. Link
By Brian Lavery International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2005
WARSAW In Poland's first free parliamentary elections 14 years ago, dozens of political parties competed in the country's chaotic introduction to modern democracy. Only one received more than 12 percent of the vote.
This weekend, Poles will choose their legislators for the fifth time since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the number of political factions has dropped to a more manageable number.
But the campaign, notable for personal attacks and accusations of financial improprieties, shows how the transition to democratic politics for Eastern Europe's largest economy has been far from steady.
A steady stream of opinion polls indicates that voters will reject the governing ex-Communist party, the Social Democratic Alliance led by President Alexsander Kwasniewski, in the parliamentary elections on Sunday, in favor of two centrist groups that together may claim as much as 80 percent of the total tally. The trend is expected to continue in a presidential election on Oct. 9.
Historically, that shift to the right should come as no great surprise: voters here have swung from one end of the political spectrum to the other in each legislative election since 1991; no party has ever been re-elected. Those shifts, and the campaign's focus on exposing corruption, are an essential stage in growing into a mature democracy, some political analysts say.
"Every country has its own dirt," said Leszek Jesien, a former government adviser who teaches about international integration at Tischner European University in Krakow. ''This is an emerging learning process."
Poland's dirt can be muckier than most: one presidential candidate dropped out after allegations that he had collaborated with the Soviet-era secret police. But the airing of such issues helps the country clear the skeletons from its collective closet, Jesien said, in a telephone interview.
And the shifts between left and right often are more significant on the surface than in effect, according to Jakub Boratynski, program director of the Batory Foundation, a pro-democracy research group.
"We have a basic tree of continuity in terms of economic policy and foreign policy by successive governments," he said.
Yet the discord between the two leading parties is so intense that it casts doubt on their ability to cooperate in Parliament, or perhaps even to form a government.
The pro-business Civic Platform and the more conservative Law and Justice party are in a dead heat for seats in the Parliament.
In a poll completed last Sunday, Platform's presidential candidate, the trilingual historian Donald Tusk, received 44 percent support, compared to 26 percent for his Law and Justice rival, Lech Kaczynski, the mayor of Warsaw.
Kaczynski has accused Platform of being out of touch with the needs of the poor and said he wants to implement a "moral rebirth" of Poland. Both parties must address unemployment, which is at 18 percent nationally and even higher in rural areas.
Most of both parties' leading candidates were activists with the Solidarity movement 25 years ago, meaning that the race this time is not between former Communists and former Solidarity figures, said Boratynski of the Batory Foundation.
That development is due in large part to the implosion of Kwasniewski's leftist party, which is expect to receive less than 10 percent of the vote on Sunday. The ex-Communists led Poland into the European Union last year but have been prone to scandals tied to issues like the privatization of the national oil company and television station. Link
posted by BEING HAD at 4:42 AM
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